


3-An Accident Waiting

by WritestuffLee



Series: The Warrior's Heart, Volume 2, Trials and Errors [3]
Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, M/M, POV, PWP, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-10-26
Updated: 2000-10-26
Packaged: 2017-12-10 12:46:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/786192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritestuffLee/pseuds/WritestuffLee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruck and Obi-Wan meet up with each other again after a year's separation and things . . . happen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	3-An Accident Waiting

**Author's Note:**

> Art by Smitty

I can’t seem to stay out of trouble when Bruck Chun and I are anywhere near each other. I don’t know quite why that is, but it’s true. It’s been true since he made my life miserable in the creche, since we fought each other for Qui-Gon’s attention at the age of twelve, since I broke his collarbone seven years later, since we first slept together not a halfyear after that. Whenever he wanders back into my life, I expect some kind of trouble.

The difficulty is that I can’t blame him for it because I almost always make it myself.

We haven’t seen each other in almost a year since the night we slept together. Since he’s gotten a new master, neither Bruck nor I are at Temple often or for long. It’s not surprising our paths haven’t crossed since that first time. I was almost hoping they wouldn’t at all, for some time to come, if ever. Not because I’d rather not see him, but because I knew it would be too much of a temptation when I did, and I was right. The night we made love, we made something powerful between us, and connected with each other in a way I’d only ever connected with Qui-Gon. I’ve been with enough others before Qui to know this doesn’t always happen, even between two Jedi. I’ve missed Bruck during the past year, not just as you miss a friend, but as you would a lover. Almost as I would miss Qui. Almost.

When we parted, I told him not to wait for me. We both knew the likelihood of our seeing each other very often was limited, and I hoped he would find someone else—but how could he, really? How can any of us, living the way we do, unless it’s a master and padawan pair like ours. Bruck prefers women, and his master is a male Lannik. He’s already had one bad experience with a female human master. And if one prefers monogamy to casual sex, as Bruck does, it leaves one with not many options. Besides, I’m afraid Bruck truly loves me.

Worse, I’m afraid I love him as well.

And I’m only afraid because, well, I have a lover and it’s someone I care for more deeply than I’ve ever cared for anyone, or suspect I ever will. I don’t understand how I could love Qui-Gon as much as I do—with every part of my heart and soul—and still love Bruck. But I seem to. You might think it’s just lust, but that’s only part of it. And it’s far more than infatuation. I know what real love feels like. This is as real—as right—as what I feel for Qui.

We seem, when we’re together, to be complements of one another, where Qui-Gon and I are more often reflections of each other. By temperament, Bruck is what the Order used to call a Martial Jedi. He’s a soldier, first and foremost. His loyalty is to the Order, to duty, to the defense of the weak. The Force is what it is to him, a tool, a weapon, a guide, a master he serves. In that sense, he’s a very uncomplicated man, grounded in and by his own rambunctious physicality, living very much in the moment. By contrast, if Qui-Gon were not the swordsman he is, he would be the classic archetype of the Philosopher Jedi. I’ve watched him and Master Windu argue for hours over the nature of the Force and its aspects. Left in peace, to himself, Qui is bookish and meditative and tremendously gentle, though I know he, like Bruck, has had his own escapades in his youth. In the same way Bruck’s sheer physicality grounds him, Qui’s meditative serenity grounds him.

I suppose I fall somewhere in between the two and that’s what attracts both of them to me and me to them. Between the two of them, I don’t feel very grounded at all—more like a ball tossed back and forth—and I’ve always had trouble living in the moment, as my master constantly reminds me. He also tells me I act far too old for my age, and Bruck claims I’ve kept him out of more trouble than I know. Now, if only I could keep myself out of it. Like the fix I’m in now.

I look over at Bruck, who’s sleeping belly-down, his beautiful brown body like caramel on ice cream, tangled in the white sheets, white braid a streak of frost over his shoulder. I’m sitting on the edge of his bed, in his room, just as naked, and it’s barely past dawn. We spent the night making love. Qui-Gon is back in our quarters, waking up alone in bed, for the first time in a year.

As Bruck would say, _Shit_.

And I’m not quite certain how it happened, to be truthful. We met up with one another again quite by accident, or at least by accident on my part. I suspect that Bruck has checked the roster each time he’s made landfall here, to see if I’m in Temple, in the same way I’ve avoided doing so. And last night, finally, I was here. We’d only been back a few days, and we’re due out again in a few more. It’s been a busy year. Ironically, he found me in the refectory, the same place everything started two years ago.

“Mind if I sit down, stranger?” he said, appearing out of the blue with a mug of tea as a feeble pretext. I was wolfing down a late dinner, after a long, leisurely swim. It’s one of the first places I head when I come back to Temple, to the pool, and make a point of using it every day when we’re here, and I’m always starving afterwards. My hair was still wet. Bruck ruffled his fingers through it, familiarly, scattering droplets across the table, and sat down beside me, straddling the chair.

“It’s good to see you again, Ben. I’ve missed you. You look well.”

He did, too. And he looked good—enough to eat. My heart had jumped when I’d heard his voice and it was beating a little faster with him sitting beside me. I think his was, too. In fact, I’m sure of it. He was wearing his cocky grin and his eyes were shining. Ice blue, I’d thought of them before. But they were really the color of desert sky when the sun is so hot that it bleaches everything. Pale blue like the hottest part of the flame.

We didn’t kiss, not yet. We didn’t even touch each other. We talked: what missions we’d been on, what new katas we’d learned, where we’d been, what competitions we might enter, what classes we’d finished, how we’d done on our exams, what we’d take next, who we’d seen since being back, who’d been hurt, who was sleeping with whom . . . dangerous waters, that last topic. We saved it for last, when nearly everyone had cleared out of the refectory and we were more or less alone in a corner.

“So how are things with you and Qui-Gon?” he said, taking a sip of his tea and very carefully not looking at me.

I knew he didn’t mean, “how’s your training going with your master?” Bruck was one of the few people who hadn’t given me grief over the way Qui-Gon had marked me, the way I’d asked him to mark me when our bond had been broken. He was one of the few people who understood. Even Bant had thought I was crazy and maybe even a little twisted, though she wouldn’t have said so, not in so many words. But Bruck knew what it meant, knew how we—Qui-Gon and I—had needed it. More than anyone, he knew how much Qui-Gon meant to me, how much we meant to each other.

“Good,” I answered quickly. Maybe a little too quickly. “Really good. We sort of started over again, and it’s been very different. Better.”

“Qui-Gon over his little fit of possessiveness?”

“Seems to be,” I admitted cautiously.

“You never did tell me what he said about us sleeping together.” And then he did meet my eyes. “Was he torqued?”

I wanted to lie. It would have been safer to say, “yes, it hurt him,” but it hadn’t, not really, and Bruck deserved the truth.

“For a moment, I think. And then he actually seemed almost—relieved.”

That surprised him. “Relieved? He sleep with someone else, too, while he was gone?”

“No. He said . . .” It took everything I had to repeat Qui’s words, because I knew once they were said, there was no denying them, and I’d have no excuses but my own scruples. “He said he was glad I’d found someone my own age, as well. Someone who would . . . love me when he was gone.” I wish I were a better liar. I wish I didn’t always feel so compelled to tell the truth, and all of it. Qui-Gon’s tried to teach me that, that sometimes it’s better to just say nothing, or say as little as possible. I wonder if I’ll ever learn?

The Bruck I thought I’d known some years ago would have taken a remark like that and used it to justify what we’d done, and what we could do now. The Bruck I’d come to know just looked at me with shock, surprise, wonder, admiration, and a touch of envy—not jealousy, but envy. “Do you know how lucky you are?” he said finally.

“Yes,” I said softly, and looked away.

“No, I don’t think you do, Ben.”

“It’s not as though he’s given me a free rein to sleep with whomever I—”

“No, of course not. Don’t be stupid. Do you understand what he did give you?”

I looked up, not knowing what he was talking about. Bruck stroked the backs of his knuckles across my cheek. “He’s given you a lifetime of love.”

“That’s hardly fair to you,” I protested. “Don’t wait for me, Bruck. I told you—”

“You moron,” Bruck grinned. “He’s the one who told me where to find you tonight. He told me to find you, when I wasn’t sure I should.” Then he leaned forward and kissed me, very gently, like Qui might. I must have made some noise, because he pressed his fingers to my lips afterwards and said, “Wait until we’re somewhere more private. Then I’ll really make you scream,” and grinned again, wider, the smug, shit-eating version that usually paralyzed my brain.

I pushed him away. “Look, just because Qui told you where I was doesn’t mean he expects us to sleep together. I’m not going to, Bruck. I can’t.”

Predictably, he looked hurt. Then he shrugged and slammed his shields down. It made me jump. And it hurt me, too. I hadn’t realized how open he’d been with me, how open we were used to being with each other. “I guess I should understand that if anyone should. I don’t much care for sleeping with people I’m not in love with, either. I’m sorry, Ben. I won’t bother you again.” He said it so matter-of-factly that I almost believed he was all right.

But when he got up to leave, I pulled him back down into his seat. Then he looked torqued. I didn’t know what to say, or why I hadn’t just let him leave.

“Look, you can’t have it both ways,” he snapped. “Either let me go, or fucking kiss me already.”

So I kissed him. Hard. Our teeth banged together with such a crack we both thought we’d broken a tooth. His hand went to the back of my head, grabbed my tail and held me there while we pushed back and forth into each others mouths, greedily scuffling for the right to taste the other at leisure. I wanted him and I couldn’t deny it. I wanted him right there on the table in the refectory. It was lust and love and joy at seeing him again, and fear of losing him and any number of other things all rolled into one, all breaking loose with that kiss.

When we both started to make fairly desperate noises, Bruck pulled back and grabbed my hand. “Come on,” he said. “My Master’s out for the night. You can be as loud as you want.” He wasn’t grinning now. His face was just as serious as mine.

I don’t remember how we got back to his quarters, or if we saw anyone on the way. I don’t even remember actually thinking until we were inside his room and his hands were undoing my belt and I was doing the same to him. He loosened my sash enough to just slip it off over my hips to the floor and pushed the outer tunic off after it and stripped the undertunic away over my head with a ripping sound. I hadn’t gotten as far with undressing him but I got my hands up under his tunics and down his pants and grabbed a double handful of his ass and pulled him against me. It felt so good to grind our cocks together even through fabric. Bruck moaned and shook and I wondered if he were going to come right there.

But he pulled back in a moment, bent his head and closed his mouth over my right nipple, sucking and licking and biting like he was starving. Whatever second thoughts I might have been having disappeared then. Heat and desire and a delicious little prick of pain jolted into my groin. All I wanted was him. He came back up for air and bit down on the spot where neck and shoulder meet. I thought even then that he’d broken the skin—he had—and I didn’t care.

“Fuck me, Ben,” he growled in my ear, one hand pulling my head back by the hair so he could suck and bite a line of marks down my neck to the left nipple.

It was just what I wanted to do. It was certainly just what my cock wanted. I didn’t fight it. The fastenings on Bruck’s boots popped open all at once with just a little touch of the Force and I pushed him back hard onto his bed, picking up his legs and yanking his boots off. The pants followed a moment later. He wasn’t wearing anything under them.

“Surprise!” he laughed, seeing the look on my face and already breathing hard.

“You shit,” I told him, grinning.

“That’s just the first of many. Don’t let it stop you.”

I slicked a finger with spit, lifted one of his legs against me, and pushed inside him. Though he was tight, he was slick and ready inside. That I hadn’t expected either. He arched his back and pushed against me, moaning, using the movement to unwind his own sash. “Oh gods Ben! Deeper! More!” he keened. “Want you—”

“Don’t want to hurt you,” I gasped. He was so beautiful, body arching, slender hands opening his tunic frantically, pulling the inner one up over his nipples, where something glinted. “Here,” he demanded. “I want your mouth here!” A tiny rod with knobs at both ends pierced his right nipple.

I gawked for a moment, and then I only wanted to taste it and play with it.

Still working a finger in him, stretching him gently, I licked back and forth over his nipple, then bit down, teeth sliding under the ends of the rod between it and his skin. I tugged a little and he followed me, crying out, hands fisted in my hair, pushing back onto a second finger.

“Oh gods you’re ready, aren’t you?” I growled, and flicked my tongue over his nipple again. I could feel how slick he was inside. He’d gotten himself prepared. Wanted it. Planned it.

Scheming bastard.

“Yes!” he hissed. “Fuck me, Ben. C’mon, please . . . All I’ve been able to think about . . . Ah!”

My hands were shaking as I unfastened my pants and pushed them down around my knees, sliding onto them in front of Bruck, between his legs. I lifted his legs onto my shoulders and pushed inside. At first he gasped and arched up and I knew I was hurting him and then he impaled himself on me until I was buried to the balls in him. He was so tight, so tight, so ready, so needy, his cock arched against his stomach, leaking and twitching. His muscles spasmed down tight around me and I let him get used to me as I stroked him, working the foreskin down under his crown, circling my thumb around the tip. When I started to move inside him, still stroking him, he threw back his head and howled.

The sound was astonishing. I didn’t know whether I was hurting him or driving him crazy. He hadn’t been this loud the last time; I’m usually the one who’s noisy. “Oh gods Ben!” he cried. “Harder! Make me come! I can’t wait!”

It didn’t take long for either of us, but Bruck came first. I made sure he did, fisting his cock as I moved inside him. He rocked up into my hand and back onto my cock and the look on his face was so full of desire and need and hope and love that I couldn’t breathe. He came hard, in a few moments, thrashing against me and crying out, muscles clamping so tightly around me that I couldn’t move, cum spurting over my hand and his chest and neck. I wanted to rub it into his skin, rub my face in it and then lick it off him but I was so close now and his spasms were pushing me over the edge. I drove into him once more, twice, held him against me and emptied myself inside him, deep inside him, so deep I never wanted to come out, while he pulsed around me. I came just as hard, howling as he had, shaking, out of control.

I fell onto my elbows, braced on either side of him, his knees sliding up over my shoulders with me still inside him, body bent nearly double. He locked his ankles behind me, reached up to run his hands through my sweaty hair. I leaned down and licked his chest, tasting cum and sweat, rubbed my face in it like an animal marking territory. I wanted that smell on me, musk and sweat, Bruck’s smell.

“C’mere,” he said, voice deep and gravelly. He nuzzled against my face, the smell of both of us mingled there with my sweat, licked my ear and kissed me. “It feels so good to have you inside me. Stay there.”

“It’s going to hurt,” I told him, “when the endorphins wear off.”

“Then you can move. Right now I want you in me. I’ve waited a year for this. I don’t want it over so quick.”

“We can start again. Take it slower.”

“You’ll stay the night?” There was a bit of fear in his eyes, and a lot of hope.

“Yes. Yes, I’ll stay the night.” And I wanted to. I wondered what Qui-Gon would think, briefly, and then I pushed it out of my mind. He’d sent Bruck to find me. He’d guess where I was. How he felt about it was best dealt with later. It was already too late to be worrying about it.

So I stayed. We made love off and on through the night. Sucked and licked and fucked and bit and tickled and stroked and kissed. It wasn’t often very gentle until afterwards, and both of us were covered with bites and bruises, our asses sore by morning. We learned some things about each other, in the night, that we hadn’t had time to learn before. He likes it better face to face, I like it better from behind. He thinks being rimmed is disgusting and he won’t do it to me, though I love it. He told me the nipple piercing hurt like hell and but gave him a hard-on for a tenth because all he could think of was my mouth on it, so I obliged as much as I could. I love it. His cock’s so much bigger when he’s hard, and it has a little bend to the right and fits in my ass like . . .

I kept trying not to compare him to Qui, in my head, but it was almost impossible. They’re so different, and it feels so good with both of them. And I tried not to regret it, but it’s harder not to, now, in the morning light. But he’s so beautiful, and I love him.

I lie down beside him again, pull him close, kiss his face. He starts to wake and nuzzles into me sleepily, hands gliding down my ribs and hips. Bruck wakes like I do, slow and groggy, reluctant. Except for his cock. He’s hard again and rubs against my thigh, languidly. I feel myself filling and rising too, wanting him again.

“Little gods, we smell like a whorehouse,” he mumbles. “I can hardly move. Kiss me.”

I do. “I have to go soon.”

“Not yet. Please,” he pleads, eyes opening and looking into mine. Furnace blue. Fire blue. Not ice at all. “I don’t get to wake up next to you often enough.” His arms slide around me, pull me close. I know he feels my cock getting hard between us. He kisses me again, murmurs, “How can it feel so good to be with you and still hurt at the same time?”

“I don’t know,” I answer. “But it does, doesn’t it?”

“Do you love me, Ben?”

I wondered when he’d ask, if he would. Neither of us has said it. _Want you, need you_ ; we’ve said everything but. He sounds so afraid. I never thought Bruck was afraid of anything. But he’s afraid of this, of losing me. It seems very strange to see him needy.

“Yes, Bruck. Yes, I do. I love you,” I tell him, punctuating my words with kisses. And it’s true. He sighs into my mouth, tension draining out of him like water. I don’t have to ask him. I know.

“Let me love you again,” he says, nibbling my stubbly jaw, rubbing his own—not stubbly at all—against me. “Let me ride you the way you like it.”

“Yes. Please,” I murmur against his lips, wanting him.

He rolls me over onto my stomach and spreads my legs, kneeling between them, pulls my hips back and puts a pillow under them. Then he kisses his way down my back, over the pictograms, nibbling along my ribs, almost tickling, down to the spot right above the cleft, the spot that always drives me wild. He stays there for a while, licking and sucking. I know I must have love bites there from last night, and he’s adding more. Very shortly, I hear myself make ridiculous noises, my hips moving against the pillow.

“Stop teasing!” I gasp.

He pushes two fingers inside me. I’m still wet inside from last night, but it hurts a little. I fumble under the bed for the lube and hand it to him. “Sorry,” he says. “I thought it would be all right.” I know he didn’t mean it; he just doesn’t have the experience with men. When he slides them in again there’s no pain at all, and he flicks across my prostate, making me cry out. “Is that it? Right there?” He does it again and I buck against him, moaning. “Can I make you come just doing this?” I feel his fingers flicking and stroking inside me over the sweet spot, his other hand circling the spot at the base of my spine. I don’t know whether to purr or growl, but he’s got me writhing on the pillow. He’s going to torture me, I can tell. I’m panting already and whining, squirming against him, bucking, fingers clenched in the stiff sheets. My balls draw up a little tighter each time his fingers flick across my prostate.

“Bruck! Fuck me already, you bastard!” And I feel his cock slide into me at last, beside his fingers, hard and slick and hot, filling and stretching me. It’s almost too much. My hips pump involuntarily into the pillow, and his weight presses me down into it. “Oh gods you’re so tight!” he growls and bites my shoulder. I don’t even feel it. All I feel is his cock inside me, fucking me hard. So little time together and he knows so well what I like.

In a very short time, the world greys out around me and all I feel is Bruck’s cock moving in me and the friction of the pillow I’m pumping into and then nothing but a wash of fire from my groin to the top of my head. I feel my spine arch and the top of my head come off, I hear myself screaming, wordlessly. I feel Bruck shudder against me, deep inside me, and fill me with his hot seed.

When I come to again, we’re both on our sides, Bruck spooning up against me, petting me. “That’s what I wanted, love. That’s what I wanted,” he murmurs into the back of my neck, nuzzling there.

“What?” I say sleepily.

“To make you scream.”

“Mmmm, happy to oblige. Anytime you’d like.”

And suddenly his hand comes to rest on my hip and he’s very serious. “Do you mean that?”

I roll over in his arms. “As long as it doesn’t hurt Qui, yes, I mean it, and even that won’t change how I feel, just whether we . . .” Panic arcs through me suddenly, wondering what I’ve done, and why, and whether Qui will forgive me—oh gods . . . “I’m sorry, Bruck. Maybe we shouldn’t have—” and I start to get up.

“Talk to him first. Just talk to him,” Bruck says gently, kissing my cheek, pulling me back down. “Let’s get showered, and you can go home for breakfast. I know you’re not going to feel right until you talk to him. Do you want me to come with you?”

I have trouble switching gears so quickly, from afterglow to serious conversation, so it takes me a moment to decide. Part of me thinks yes, and part of me thinks I’d better face it on my own, since I made the situation what it is. I don’t want Bruck getting hurt either. It’s not his fault. I wonder if, somehow, I can get away without either of them getting hurt. It’s probably wishful thinking, but I won’t know until I talk to Qui, will I?

“No, love, but thank you,” I tell Bruck, rebuffing his offer as gently as I can. “I think I’d better see him alone.”

“I’ll be waiting, then. Tell me what he says. Promise?”

“Yes. I promise.” It’s all I can promise right now, but it would be cruel to say that, so I don’t.

We shower together, taking our time, soaping each other from head to foot. At first the steam makes the smell of sex thicker in the air, makes me want him again, and then there’s nothing but soap and shampoo and skin. I go to my knees and rinse the soap gently from Bruck’s genitals, nuzzle in against his cock and balls and lick him when the soap is gone. We haven’t done this yet. It’s been all penetration with fingers and cocks or jerking one another off by hand. I think he’s a little afraid of asking me to do this because he’s a little afraid to do it himself. Not surprising since his preference is women. But I want to, I want to taste him this way. I want to know him this way if it’s the last we see of each other. I want to do this for him for the same reason.

I take his cock in my mouth, tongue circling under the crown and then slipping in beneath his foreskin. It’s odd to feel him not just growing hard but growing longer and thicker until I either have to let him slide down my throat or back off. I can’t hear him breathing faster over the water, but I see his diaphragm moving quickly beneath the skin and his hands are in my hair, clenching and unclenching. He leans back against the stall wall, and now I feel him shaking, hearing soft keening noises coming out of him. I look up at him, holding him at the root while I suck him gently and fondle his balls. His eyes are closed and there’s an expression of complete abandon on his face, nostrils flared, mouth open, head thrown back. So beautiful.

I push his foreskin down with my tongue, lick over the tip and into the slit there, tasting his salty pre-cum, then curl my tongue around the ridge to the sensitive spot underneath. Bruck shudders almost convulsively and moans. I close my mouth around him again, teeth behind my lips and move down to the root and back up and down and up again, give the crown another lick and down again then come back up with my teeth scraping lightly against him, and squeeze his balls gently. He bucks into my mouth, hard, and I let him slide into my throat and swallow around him. That’s all it takes to make him come. I drink him down and lick him clean and then pull him down onto my lap on the floor of the shower. Water washes over both of us, hitting us both low in the chest and back. We kiss and I know he can taste himself in my mouth. His tongue licks the inside of my mouth like he’s trying to lick it clean.

After a moment he leans back and kisses my forehead. “I’ll say this for guys who swing both ways: they give great head.”

“How would you know? I’ll bet that’s the first time anyone’s ever sucked you off.”

Even in the heat, I can see him blush. “That obvious, huh?”

I laugh. “Yes, that obvious. I’m good, but I’m not that good.”

“You’ll have to teach me.”

“When you’re ready.” I kiss him, not knowing if I’ll ever get to.

Eventually, we stop fooling around and finish in the shower. I get dressed, and Bruck hugs me before I go. He doesn’t act like he might never see me again, so I try not to either. The only thing he holds me to is my promise to tell him what Qui says.

 

The walk back to my—our—quarters seems both too long and too short. By the time I arrive, my hair is still wet from the shower and I still have no idea what I’m going to say to Qui. I know he’ll be up because he always is, if it’s past dawn. And he is, sitting at the small table in the kitchen over a last cup of tea, datapad in hand. It’s startling to not see another place setting across from him, almost painful. He looks up at me with a raised eyebrow and an unreadable expression as I come through the door and hang my cloak up.

“I take it Bruck found you last night?” he says mildly, sipping his tea and regarding me over the rim of his mug.

“Yes. You did tell him where to find me then?”

“Didn’t he tell you I did so?”

“I wasn’t sure—”

Qui-Gon shakes his head as though he’s disappointed in me. “Bruck has his faults, Padawan, but I don’t think lying is one of them. Not even to get you to sleep with him again. Don’t you trust him?”

It’s a shock to realize a part of me still doesn’t, and I feel ashamed then. I’ll fuck him but I don’t trust him?

“Or is it me you don’t trust?” Qui finishes. “Do you think I’m pushing you away?”

“I don’t know what to think,” I tell him, just barely able to find my voice. I’ve never felt quite so confused.

He gets up from the table and comes to me, cupping my cheek, making me look at him. “I would never push you away, Obi-Wan. But I can’t hold you to me, either. The only claim I have on you is as your master, and what you choose to give me as your lover. If you decide to share yourself with another, what right have I to complain?”

“Would you do the same?” I ask him, stupidly hurt somehow.

Qui laughs. “I’m nearly an old man, love. I can barely keep up with you, let alone another as well. But I’ve done so in the past. Jedi value monogamy as much as we can—mostly in others outside the Order. It’s so seldom possible for us that we cannot afford to require it of each other. I have you right now, in this moment, and I suspect you are all I shall want until I am one with the Force. But in a few years you will be a knight and we’ll quite likely be separated. I will not chain you to me with promises when I may only see you once a year. That choice is yours. And one day, Obi-Wan, you will be without me entirely. And I do not want you to be alone. I think Bruck loves you very much. More importantly, I think he always will. As I will.”

“I don’t want to be without you,” I tell him, sinking into his arms, feeling rather miserable.

“As long as I am your master, you will never be without me. When you are a knight, you will only be without me from your own choice, or duty. And when death finally comes, I will always be with you, in the Force. But when that time comes, I want you to have someone to hold at night. Someone who will care for you as I do. If that means sharing you with Bruck in the meanwhile, so you can build a strong relationship with each other, so be it.” He leans back and holds my chin, making me look up at him. His eyes are full of humor. “Besides, the two of you are just an accident waiting to happen. I’d prefer you slept with one another than took out your frustrations on each other. You’re young and there’s certainly enough of you to go around.”

He says this last into my ear, biting it a little and squeezing my ass. “You smell good, love. Kiss me.”

I pull back, a little panicked, realizing I’ll still taste—but Qui-Gon covers my mouth with his own, licks my lips, pushes inside and kisses me the way Bruck did, tasting, licking. “Mmmmm,” he growls and pulls away. “I take it you’ve had breakfast?” he says, eyes glittering with mischief.

I can feel myself blushing the way Bruck did. “In a manner of speaking,” I stammer.

“Let me get you some fruit and carbohydrates to go with the protein,” he says, almost laughing.

I pick up a pillow from the couch and throw it at him as he goes back to the kitchen. It hits him squarely in the backside and fails to break his stride. He ignores it with great dignity.

After breakfast, I call Bruck. We’re going for a swim together tonight. After dark. Qui-Gon announces he will be off “catching up” with one of his own friends in another district of the city tonight, and doubts he’ll be back before morning. There are fresh sheets on the bed, he says.

I wonder how I got so lucky.


End file.
